Architect Daniel Libeskind On Finding Ideas In Poetry

What did you learn in 2012 that you will carry forth with you into 2013?

On poetry and the importance of memory:

"I learned to memorize more poetry; I’m almost up to a hundred poems. I learned to furnish my mind with poetry. As you fly around the world and you do your work, your mind is just kind of a container of possibilities, but if you furnish it—like a good city furnished with civic buildings, or an apartment filled with essential furnishings—then you have constant access to wisdom that’s always there. With computers, it’s easy to access information, but it’s also just as easy to forget everything, so I learned the importance of memory and of training memory."

Learning to unlearn:

"The essence of what there is to learn is to unlearn everything that you know in order to learn again. You acquire habits, you acquire so-called expertise, but I think in the world of art or architecture, which is a civic art, you need freshness, you need a new way of looking at something. And sometimes knowing too much interferes with a look that is more essential. With every building comes the challenge to innovate, to see from a completely new perspective, and that’s certainly something that I was aware of during the year."

More Lessons for 2013 from some of today's most innovative business thought leaders here.